Veda Krishnamurthy has announced her retirement from professional cricket, five years after her last appearance for India in the 2020 Women’s T20 World Cup final at the MCG.
The 31-year-old batter closes her international ledger on 48 One-Day Internationals and 76 T20Is. Her most celebrated moment remains the 2017 ODI World Cup campaign, when India fell just nine runs short of the title at Lord’s. That tournament featured her 45-ball 70 against New Zealand, an innings widely viewed as the catalyst for India’s semi-final berth. “Cricket gave me more than just a career. It gave me a sense of who I am. It taught me how to fight, how to fall and how to keep showing up,” she wrote on social media. “It’s now time to give back. Whatever the role, whatever the way, I’m here for the game. I truly believe my second innings will be just as meaningful.”
Across formats, Veda’s numbers are tidy rather than towering: 829 ODI runs, 875 T20I runs, 10 international fifties in all. Yet those figures hardly explain her value as an energetic middle-order option, a sharp outfielder and, by most accounts, a morale-raiser in the dressing-room. Former India coach WV Raman once pointed out her “ability to change the tempo in ten deliveries”, a trait that kept her in national calculations for close to a decade.
Domestically she captained Karnataka and Railways, leading Karnataka to back-to-back runners-up finishes in the Senior Women’s One-Day Trophy (2021-22 and 2022-23). A brief stint with Hobart Hurricanes in the 2017-18 Women’s Big Bash League expanded her horizons, even if runs proved elusive. Her on-field farewell came with Gujarat Giants during the 2024 Women’s Premier League.
What next? Krishnamurthy has long expressed interest in coaching and grassroots development. Given her lived experience—she lost her mother and sister to Covid-19 in 2021 yet returned to play the following season—many expect her to be a strong mentor for young players coping with life’s uncertainties.
A career marked by peaks, troughs and, above all, perseverance ends here, but the game is unlikely to be without her voice for long.
